telegraphjournal.canadaeast.com

SUSSEX – A Sussex woman who last week was given a conditional sentence to be served in her home after chasing her husband through a mall with a knife is now in jail awaiting a bail hearing.

Stephanie Doucette is escorted from the Sussex courthouse by Const. Phil Greer of the Sussex RCMP on Thursday

Stephanie Doucette appeared in Sussex provincial court Thursday to face a charge of violating a condition of her sentence. On April 2, Judge Henrik Tonning said in sentencing the 31-year-old Doucette that her toxic relationship with her spouse had to be severed.

Tonning gave her a 12-month conditional sentence to be served in her home under strict conditions, among them that she have no contact with her husband, Bob Doucette, and that any visits with their daughter be arranged by a third party.

But Crown prosecutor Kelly Winchester alleges that last Saturday night, two days after the judge sentenced her, she went to a Sussex bar and was found by police chatting with her husband and having a cigarette in the same smoking room.

Doucette was picked up after police reported the alleged incident to Doucette’s probation officer Monday.

Doucette raised her voice as she argued with the judge Thursday.

“I was out having a good time, nothing happened,” she insisted from the prisoner’s box.

“I didn’t do anything. I should have left, but I was drinking.

“Is it against the law to go out and have a good time? No, it’s not.”

She said she was supposed to be with her daughter, but instead had her sister watch the little one while she went to the Thirsty Mule Saloon to relax.

Doucette promised Tonning she would go home and stay there and vehemently opposed going back to jail.

But the judge wasn’t in any mood to offer any more breaks to Doucette.

“The potential for disaster is huge with him,” Tonning fired back, saying booze, her prescribed antidepressants, Bob Doucette and his new girlfriend in the same picture are a bad combination based on the accused’s recent actions.

“You think that’s not a recipe for disaster?” the judge asked as he raised his voice.

On Feb. 3 an enraged Stephanie Doucette chased the husband she called abusive though the Sussex Mall. Police Tasered her when she wouldn’t hand over her weapon.

She pleaded guilty to assaulting her husband with a knife, uttering death threats to him and committing mischief by damaging a glass door at the barbershop that her husband hid behind.